Share these talks and lectures with your colleagues
Invite colleaguesCase study
Folio: A case study in brand journalism
Journal of Education Advancement & Marketing,
4
(3),
267-277
(2019)
Abstract
In the never-ending quest to tell the University of Alberta’s story to as wide an audience as possible and further enhance its reputation, the current authors developed and created a brand journalism site, folio.ca, that is independent yet connected to the University of Alberta. The objectives were simple: increase the number of people who read stories about University of Alberta and obtain increased media coverage from legacy and new media outlets. This paper explains the rationale for the move in what is an everchanging media landscape in which consumers get their news from an ever-increasing number of media outlets and discusses the steps taken to develop the website and obtain buy-in from all corners of the academy. The paper provides details of the implementation plan, which included four foundational pillars — inverted pyramid structure to tell our news stories, change management plan, designing the news site and developing an editorial mandate. The paper describes how the results far exceeded the current authors’ expectations. Every key performance indicator identified — including most notably, page views and media mentions — grew dramatically. In Folio’s first year, page views increased 86.6 per cent while external media mentions rose by 24.5 per cent. Furthermore, insights gained from the Folio audience, compared to the audience who visit the university’s institutional website, suggested a broadening of the audience who read stories about the University of Alberta. The results demonstrate that if a university builds a communication tool that uses the traditional techniques of journalism to tell stories that draw on the expertise of the institution and is carefully targeted to an external audience, it can develop an audience and increase the pickup of its stories by external media outlets, resulting in a broadening of its ability to tell its story to the public.
Keywords: brand journalism; media relations; news; marketing/communications; content strategy; editorial strategy
The full article is available to subscribers to the journal.
Author's Biography
Jacqui Tam has a bachelor of science in mathematics from Memorial University and a master of arts in journalism from Western University in Canada. She has 35 years of experience in communications, public relations and marketing in both the profit and not-for-profit sectors, 25 of which have been in higher education. Prior to joining the University of Alberta in November 2014 as the Associate Vice President, Marketing & Communications, she was Assistant Vice President of Communications, Public Affairs & Marketing at Wilfrid Laurier University in Ontario, where she was responsible for the award-winning Inspiring Lives rebranding initiative. Jacqui served as the University of Alberta’s Vice President (University Relations) from July 2017 to September 2019. Jacqui has developed, implemented and led integrated communications and marketing strategies and programmes and handled crisis communications/issues management. She has been responsible for rebranding initiatives; publication production and redesign; visual identity programmes; print, broadcast, online and mobile advertising; web and social media initiatives; media relations and news; alumni magazines; internal communications; market research and more. Jacqui has taught part time in the Business Faculty at Memorial University and regularly delivers presentations at the national and international level. She has also been an active member of numerous professional associations, including serving for ten years as the Canadian representative on the Association of Commonwealth Universities PR, Marketing and Communications Network. She has won more than 70 individual and team awards for campaigns, publications, communications/public relations programming, writing, advertising, websites, publications and special initiatives.
Michel Proulx has a bachelor of social science in political science from the University of Ottawa and a diploma in print journalism from Algonquin College in Canada. He has more than 25 years of experience in communications, public relations and journalism. Michel started his career as a political aide in the provinces of Ontario and British Columbia and then became a print journalist, working as a reporter and editor for both newspapers and magazines in Ottawa, Victoria and Edmonton. He primarily covered courts and business, eventually running a monthly business newspaper in Edmonton before moving over to magazines where he was, among other things, the Founding Editorial Director of the custom division of a magazine publisher. Following that, he moved to the Government of Alberta where he worked in strategic communication planning, issues management, media relations and speechwriting. He also oversaw communications activities surrounding the mountain pine beetle infestation before moving to the University of Alberta, where he has worked for the past dozen years. He was the Lead Communicator in the Faculty of Science and then in the Faculty of Agricultural, Life & Environmental Sciences where he further honed his communication skills in the areas of strategic communication planning, issues management and media relations. Three years ago, Michel took on his current role in which he developed and implemented the university’s brand journalism strategy, establishing folio.ca and overseeing the university’s proactive media relations.
